Advertisement
Published: April 1st 2009
Edit Blog Post
La Universidad
The Uni has a lot of green space to relax on between classes Hola amigos!
I’ve decided to change the way I blog a little so that it is more interesting for you and more fun for me. I’m going to just blog about the trips that I take because the last two months that I am here I am doing a lot of traveling. I also will add random blogs like this one that is just general about what is going on. The big news academically for me is that the day I got back from Lisboa, I finally decided to move up another level in terms of Spanish classes, mean that I’ve moved from the bottom level to the third level (don’t get too impressed, there are seven levels/classes in total). I had been talking to both teachers about this move for about two weeks, but finally decided to do it. I loved Arantxa and her teaching style, which made it extremely hard to leave, but the other students in the class weren’t putting in the time outside of class like I was. Arantxa had tried numerous things, but I was the only one that was putting in the time, so we ended up spending large amounts of time in class doing
La Universidad
This one of the building where I have classes. the homework that I had already done at home. Also, she had to fight everyday to get people to speak in Spanish. In my new class with Raquel, my head hurts after two hours of class because of all the Spanish. All the levels cover the same material in terms of tenses (there are so many ways of conjugating the verbs, you can’t understand until you learn a language), and actually my new class is behind my old class in terms of material. However, everyone does their homework and everyone speaks in English, we spent a whole day just debating numerous things, which is such good practice. I know that this class will be a tad tougher to get a good grade because of the way that the teacher grades, but I’m pass-fail so it really doesn’t matter and I’ll learn more Spanish. On my fourth day in this class, we had to give 10 minute oral presentation in Spanish that I choose to do on Portugal and Spain. I spent many hours the night before preparing (yea I know, waiting to the last minute) and made an outstanding PowerPoint using my pictures and then talked about the differences and
La Universidad
It is really spread out with no road cutting threw it because it is an old airport, so different than Marquette similarities in food, culture, monarchs, dictators and more. Although I the presentation when well, the morning had started off a little rough because when I got off the bus at the Uni, I noticed that my backpack was soaking wet. Apparently, I hadn’t closed my water bottle all the way and it had opened, getting all my textbooks, notebooks and my laptop wet. However, since I’m in Spain I have the ‘no pasa nada’ (Don’t worry about it) mind set and although I literally poured water out of my laptop case, my computer still worked, so I couldn’t let that ruin my day. After the presentation, I met friends on the beach where it was 75 and sunny before going home for lunch and a three hour siesta.
Sunday was daylight savings time here for us, so now I’m back to being 7 hours ahead of central time, which makes it harder to talk to people back home. Although I had changed all my clocks, I still rolled out of bed 45 minutes late on Monday because I didn’t think it was light enough to get out of bed, estoy muy tonto. But, no worries, three of my friends
La Universidad
I really enjoy walking between classed also were late to class. Also on Monday I got my first letter from my Grandma. This was really exciting because although I have been staying in contact thru email and phone calls, there is just something about a hand written letter and photos.
During this past week and since I didn’t go anywhere last weekend, I have had more time to enjoy Alicante. By this I mean, some nights/afternoons I have been meeting people at a café or pub. Yesterday, I met two friends and we walked down by the beach to find some cannon balls still suck in some old buildings before we climbed the Castle of Santa Barbara that is located in the center of the city. I’ve come to realize that although Alicante isn’t the most beautiful city, it is quite enjoyable and I have made a lot of good friends threw CIEE while I have been here.
Traveling, where to begin. I would say that I spend on average between two and three hours a day planning some trip. As a student that has a very limited budget (I think in terms of days power washing the pig barns and mulching tomatoes instead
La Biblioteca
Do you see why I ... of Euros), I do a lot of research before I book something. This research includes searching for the cheapest flights or flight-train combination to my desired city and then doing this for multiple days. Once I figure out when and how long I’m going to be in a spot, I then use Google, wiki travel and my many guide books to determine where to sleep (other than a park bench) and what I want to see. Also, remember that most of my trips, I’m not doing alone, so I then talk to my travel partners about what they have found and then decide what we want to do. This probably sounds like a lot of work, but it actually is a lot of fun, especially when things go off without a hitch like Lisboa. From today, I have two days until I go with CIEE to Granada for the weekend which will be interesting to see how the Arabic influence has shaped the city, especially the Alhambra. Also, it is one week until I start my two and a half week spring break. I don’t know if I have blogged about this before, but for the first week I’m going
La Biblioteca
... don't get much done here. to be walking the last 130 km of the Camino de Santiago Pilgrimage route. Although according to Robbie, my roommate at Marquette, this really isn’t a pilgrimage because I am not solely doing it for religious reason (it is part of my class), I’m still excited to celebrate Easter in some tiny pilgrimage town in northwest Spain, even if I do miss the Easter celebrations at home. From the end of the pilgrimage, I am taking an overnight train to Madrid instead of taking the 13 hour bus with CIEE back to Alicante. I arrive in Madrid at 8am and fly out to London in the afternoon, so I may meet up with friends I have in Madrid, or else just spend the day in the parks. I arrive in London at 6pm and was going to stay near the airport at a BB seeing that the airport is 35 miles out of the city, but have now booked bus ticket and hostel in downtown London before I fly to Ljubljana, Slovenia the next day at 2pm. I can do London in 20 hours right? I know that I can’t but to get the cheap flights, I had to do
an overnight in London, so I figured to spend a little more money and figure out the Tube and say hi to Big Ben. In Ljubljana, I will be meeting up with my friend Chris, who is also studying with me in Alicante, and we will be doing Ljubljana, Slovenia to Zagreb, Croatia to Belgrade, Serbia to Sofia, Bulgaria to Istanbul, Turkey. We will be staying between one and three days in each city and using trains to move between the cities, including three 8 hour night trains. We decided to do Eastern Europe because Chris has already seen Western Europe on his multiple visits to Europe and I will be hitting of the normal countries when the program ends in May. Also, all of these countries are safe (even though some may still have landmines in the rural area and may have had a communist revolution/genocide in the last 10 years), but really, these cities that we are going to and the trains that we are using have been listed as safe in all of our guide books, so there is no need to worry. After we get back on the 25 of April, I’ll put my nose to
La Universidad
One of the 5 caferterias on campus the grind wheel and pound out some papers and presentations during my last two weeks of class.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.05s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 11; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0264s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb